


Lamentation

by LordOnisyr



Category: Death Note
Genre: Explicit Language, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hero Worship, Letters, Past Character Death, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-26 01:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1669628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordOnisyr/pseuds/LordOnisyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Writing out one’s feelings was one of the best ways to work them out, or so Mello had been told. A few hours after running away from Wammy's House, Mello writes a letter to his dead hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lamentation

**Author's Note:**

> Time to contribute some Death Note stuff to this account. This was written a very long time ago for a Death Note fic contest on LiveJournal: it ended up winning Mod's Choice. I was thinking of making this into a longer fid, but that ended up not happening. This is the first time I'm posting this fic in a place other than Livejournal. I've always been pretty proud of it.

**Lamentation**

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of Tsgumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata, and Viz Media. I don't own them, I just examine all their possibilities.   
  


* * *

  
Writing down one’s feelings was one of the best ways to work them out, face what had been kept inside for too long. That’s at least what Mello was told several times by the resident counselor of Wammy’s House, who said a little too cheerily that he had “anger management issues.”  
  
He gave Mello a large, spiral-bound notebook and told him to start at any page, write out whatever was on his mind; don’t worry about penmanship, grammar, or form, just get it all out there. Free-write your feelings, write a letter to someone you care about, or someone who hurt you the most, or maybe someone you feel bad about hurting.  
  
It was a bullshit exercise. Mello never did it unless ordered to and shoved the notebook in his closet until the next weekly session.  
  
For some reason he put that notebook in his backpack this afternoon before leaving; maybe it was a good idea to have extra paper around for burning or jotting down information.   
  
His fingers played with the torn edge of the remaining half of one page. The time of the next bus to London and the hurriedly written phone number of an online acquaintance of his there he could crash with on the other half and in his pocket.  
  
A few lingering raindrops plopped against the open page, causing a few of the lines to bleed blue in circular patterns though most of it was protected by the cover and the Mello’s low position.   
  
The rain had stopped half an hour ago, about as long as Mello had been sitting on the same wet boulder in the old gravel pit less than a kilometer away from Wammy’s House. The police regularly patrolled this area, though had no issues with the local kids riding their bikes up the sides or even playing ball; all things he used to do with Matt until the world ended two hours ago.   
  
It was likely Roger called the cops after he stormed off and one quick word with Matt would indicate where their regular hang-out spot was. It was only a matter of time before he saw blue lights reflected off the trees, though it had been half an hour and no interruptions yet.  
  
Mello blinked away a few raindrops, gaze still on the one whole blank page in front of him.   
  
He should call Matt, tell him what was going on; odds were Near or Roger had told him enough already. His phone was in the pocket of his black cargo pants and shut off. Mello was afraid to turn it back on, knowing there would be a message of some kind from Matt that was probably as stream of curses he really couldn’t bear to hear right now.  
  
The pencil and the notebook weighed him down enough right now so he could barely move.   
  
Knuckles were still cracked and caked with dried blood from being bashed against a sand pile; his legs ached from running and kicking. Rocks scattered around him had been thrown with animalistic screams.   
All that was left now was silence, weightlessness, the sound of wind moving through the wet leaves and the occasional drop against the paper.   
  
All that was left now was cold reality and the aching in his stomach; solitude, loss, feeling for some reason like he had been orphaned again.  
  
Writing out one’s feelings was one of the best ways to work them out, or so he had been told. He could do this by writing a letter to a person he cared about…or a person who had hurt him the most.  
  
The words formed in his mind, blocked by the dam of his pain, yet he had no strength left in him to push them back any further. The pencil at last scratched against the surface.  
  
 _Dear L,_  
  
Even writing the letter was like a jab through his gut.  
  
 _You disgust me._  
  
That made him feel better.  
  
 _I used to think you were the greatest person, a god-like being almost; so perfect, so infallible. They told me and I came to believe you were the greatest detective in the world, you solved every case you got involved with because your genius powers of deduction were otherworldly or you were just that perfect.  
  
I called you my hero once, L. I looked up to you, I wanted to be just like you…no we all wanted to be just like you. Our hero, our golden idol.  
  
So where the hell is the great L now? Where the hell is the great detective who swore he would get Kira, who swore he would bring him to justice and see him executed? Where is the detective who went into his greatest case, who all of Wammy’s House was rooting for with every detail on the news, every rumor of how Kira would be caught.  
  
Well where the fuck are you now!  
_  
The pencil tip nearly ripped the paper with the force of Mello’s hand.  
  
 _Six feet fucking under? Scattered over some pretty mountain, the tiny burnt particles of your remains floating away in the wind?  
  
Where is the great fucking L now?   
  
Dead!  
_  
The tip of Mello’s pencil shook with the rest of his hand. His breath came in heaves pushing away the growing sting in his eyes.  
  
 _Roger pulled me and Near aside in his office this afternoon, telling us the grand old news.  
  
Do you know what Near said after Roger told us you died?   
  
“If you can’t solve the game, if you can’t solve the puzzle, you’re nothing but a loser.”  
  
I kept myself from beating his head in for saying that about you, but now I know it was the truth. You were nothing but a loser after all, that’s how you ended up.   
  
I fucking hope Beyond Birthday is hovering over you in whatever part of Hell you’re in now and laughing in your face. All it took was Kira to beat you, he must be fucking jealous or maybe is mourning you in some weird way, but the end was still the same; you were defeated, you lost.  
_  
He imagined standing there right in front of L and screaming at him. Those large, gray eyes peering from a curtain of black hair, arms folded over his knees, expression pensively blank; just like Mello remembered from two years ago.  
  
Two years ago Mello sat on a couch and gazed up at his hero with an unimpressed look. He would never look into those eyes again. He would never hear that deep, thoughtful voice sharing the details of his greatest cases. There would be no all-night lecture on how he solved the Kira case. The Kira case was lost. L failed.  
  
The sting in his eyes was obvious as the pace of his pencil quickened.  
  
 _You didn’t even choose one of us, you asshole! You cocky son of a bitch, you didn’t even think that far ahead did you? You didn’t even think it was possible that you were never coming back, that Kira would win, that one of us would get shoved in his way when you fucked up.  
  
I dared call you my fucking hero! Some fucking hero you turned out to be, you were a fraud! A failure!   
  
You made this your fight and then you expected us to clean up your mess!  
  
How dare you leave us with this bullshit!  
  
How dare you leave us fighting it out to see who would go on a suicide mission!  
  
How dare you leave us…  
_  
The pencil tip stopped in its place, Mello’s hand frozen as he read those five words.   
  
His breath quickened, the heat behind his eyes now a burning ache. The inevitable couldn’t be stopped now.  
  
The notebook clattered to the ground, pencil following after it.   
  
“How dare you leave us,” Mello said, voice a forced whimper. “You son of a bitch!”  
  
Mello forced his head up, though it fell; face buried in his hands and tears running between his fingers, breath a mass of sobs.   
  
“Son…of a…b-bitch!”  
  
Sobs became whimpers, whimpers turned to a low wail. This was relief and agony at the same time.   
  
The only sound around him was the breeze through the trees. All he could see were those eyes boring through him; eyes closed forever or gaping open in final horror. Eyes he would never look into again.  
  
Mello yanked his head upward from his hands, hastily wiping his nose with the sleeve of his red jacket with strong breaths and snatching the notebook and pencil from the ground.   
  
“No one makes me cry, bastard!” he said with a lingering sob, the tip of the pencil on the paper.   
  
 _Near’s your successor now, L. But I swear I’m the one who’s going to get Kira. I’m going to show I’m better than him, that I’m better than you.  
  
I called you my hero once, L…_  
  
His pencil paused for a moment as he considered those words, head spinning and energy drained.  
  
“But I guess I never told you that,” he said. “Never told you how I…how much I…”  
  
More tears threatened to surface, though were held back by the tip of his eraser on the last line.   
  
 _I just hope, L, that your death was peaceful. That Kira killed you quickly, that you didn’t suffer. That’s all the hope I have for you.  
_  
Hope that he died sitting in his chair with a piece of cake and not on a cold gurney covered in tubes and wires. That he died with a pleasant sigh or a peaceful breath and not a scream.   
  
Hope that the second he turned his phone on there would be a message from L saying it was all a cover-up, saying this was a way to draw out Kira. Hope he could just see that face one last time.  
  
 _Rest in peace, L._  
  
Mello threw the pencil on the ground before looking at the letter again, wondering how L would react if he read it.  
  
One hand grabbed a corner of the paper and carefully ripped it from the notebook, the other reaching in his trouser pocket and producing a disposable lighter. He held out the paper, still mostly dry despite the rain. The lighter clicked, edge of the flame coming to the paper. The paper caught immediately, the tiny wet portion steaming as Mello dropped it in the dirt.  
  
  
He stared at it as the rest caught ablaze, vanishing into steaming ashes as he imagined L sitting somewhere in another world and plucking it from the smoke in the air.


End file.
